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Last month The Wild Hunt asked five members of the community — Thracian polytheanimist Anomalous Thracian of the blog Thracian Exodus; Mambo Chita Tann of Sosyete Fos Fe Yo We; priestess, author, blogger, and Solar Cross Temple board member Crystal Blanton; OBOD Druid and Under the Ancient Oaks blogger John Beckett; and Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) Druid Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh — for their thoughts on sacrifice. The following continues the conversation with part two of that interview.

How is sacrifice separate from blood sacrifice? Does blood sacrifice include personal blood offerings or is it limited to animal sacrifice?

Anomalous Thracian

“Blood sacrifice is not a term that I use and I would argue it as vague and somewhat useless. Ritual bloodletting would be more appropriate in this context, if I am reading the question correctly, as it is general enough to include many things, such as: ritual cutting of one’s own flesh to create a bond or pact with a spirit; ritual cutting of a sexual partner’s flesh in a ritual or ceremony; ritual cutting of an animal (not for the purpose of killing, but for producing the essence of a specific animal’s life force); “marking” a person with your own essence under certain ritual circumstances, whether for positive (protective, warding) or negative (hostile, magically infectious) reasons. Similarly cutting one’s self to feed one’s own blood to a specific deity — exactly as you might use, say, a goat, but without an immediate death — could be considered a sacrifice, and is still generally categorizable as “bloodletting.” I would hesitate to call anything that does not involve intentional death a sacrifice, in personal use of the term, but I would consider “the feeding or offering of blood, without death, to a deity or spirit” to be a form of sacrifice when circumstances call for it. Note: In many traditions, there are HEAVY restrictions upon forms of bloodletting of this sort, as the spirits and deities in question will take this as indication that the person being bled is “food,” and they will be regarded as such.” — Anomalous Thracian, Thracian Exodus

Mambo Chita Tann

“We do not ever offer human blood in Haitian Vodou, despite stereotypes to the contrary. Blood can be offered in the rituals around making animal offerings, which almost always become food for ritual participants, once the spirits have taken their share.It is possible to consider sacrifice in the sense of other offerings of great worth that are given to the spirits, such as the great amount of effort, money, resources, and time an entire Vodou sosyete will dedicate to initiation ceremonies or annual observances of special ritual, but we still do not place these offerings as being more precious or higher than the ultimate sacrifice of an animal’s life to provide protection, blessing, and sustenance for that sosyete and its members.” — Mambo Chita Tann, Sosyete Fos Fe Yo We, Haitian Vodou

Crystal Blanton

“There are many different types of sacrifice, and it is not limited to blood sacrifice. Different traditions access this differently. I personally do not practice blood sacrifice, but I have made personal blood offerings. I honor the life force of the individual, and the power of the divine within me, adding magic in the process.” — Crystal Blanton, Daughters of Eve

John Beckett

“Blood sacrifice is a subset of sacrifice, a particular form of sacrifice. It can include personal blood offerings or it can include animal sacrifice.” — John Beckett, Under the Ancient Oaks

Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

“Sacrifice often is confused with “blood offerings.” Blood sacrifice really doesn’t have a place in a modern Neopagan context, yet there are established cultures that still perform blood sacrifices. In a modern Druid context, sacrifices are often things such as whiskey, grains, flowers, prayers, poems, songs, and anything else that is a tangible item used to give to the gods. There are instances where Neopagans will sacrifice some of their own blood as a form of blood oath, but that is a rare instance. Killing of a live animal is another form of archaic sacrifice or offering that really is not something that is all that common in a Neopagan context. Most of us purchase our meat already slaughtered for consumption, but there are ways to offer a portion of that meat as a sacrifice in the form of the shared meal.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh, Druid, Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF)

Do modern Paganisms stand to gain anything positive from giving offerings and sacrifice to the Gods? What about blood sacrifice?

“As a Polytheist who does not really identify as a Pagan, I can’t speak for “modern Pagans.” I believe that authentic religious traditions — rather than psychological models drawing from religious terms or structures, or social movements similarly using the aesthetic of religion for artistic, activist, or community-centered reasons, etcetera — should have trained specialists who handle the navigation of sacrifices to the respective gods of said group, assuming that said gods request, require, or even accept sacrifices. Not all gods like bloodshed or death.As for “blood sacrifice,” I will take this to mean “ritual bloodletting” (as indicated above), and again say, that while I cannot speak for Modern Paganisms, I can state that magically and religiously there is great potency in these technologies which can be certainly used for ‘gaining something positive.’” — Anomalous Thracian

“Giving offerings to the gods cannot possibly be a bad thing. Like prayer and interaction with one’s religious community, I tend toward the belief that you can’t get enough of it. Giving special offerings that take effort, non-blood sacrifices, are just more of the same. I do not believe that Pagans need to give blood sacrifice unless and until they understand the context of that act, have trained personnel who can perform it for them, and have a distinct need to do it: either because they need to share ritual food, they are in a place where they need to butcher their own meat and they choose to sacralize that act by offering their food animals to the gods, or their gods demand it of them and no other options are satisfactory. Even in the last case, I still believe it is imperative and necessary for context and training to occur first. As I stated in the PantheaCon panel, I expect that most modern Pagans, living in countries where they do not have to butcher their own meat and practicing religions that have lost their connection to customs where blood sacrifice was practiced, will never need to do this, and their deities would not ask it of them as a result.” — Mambo Chita Tann

“Our relationships with the Gods dictate the value of sacrifice within a particular context. Much of what we would gain would be within the relationship itself, and that would depend on the practitioner and the God(s) in question. To make a broad, sweeping statement here about gain or loss would be devaluing to the individual and cultural relationships of varying practitioners of the craft.” — Crystal Blanton

“I have mixed feelings about blood sacrifice. On one hand, it would do us all good to get a first-hand understanding of where our food comes from and a first-hand understanding that what we are eating was itself alive only a short time ago. On the other hand, butchering animals requires skills you just don’t learn unless you grow up on a working farm and the only thing worse than not sacrificing is sacrificing clumsily – the animal should not suffer needlessly. Beyond that, I look at the community and legal problems blood sacrifice brings to some of the Afro-Caribbean religions – that’s not a battle I care to fight.But when you move beyond the issue of blood sacrifice, there is unquestionable benefit from sacrificing to the Gods. It brings us into closer relationships with Them, and it forces us to consider our relationships with food and with the non-food offerings we may be asked to give.” — John Beckett

“Absolutely, yes. We gain their blessings and we build our relationships with them through sacrifice. As far as blood sacrifice goes, in my years as a pagan and decade plus in ADF I have rarely heard it mentioned. I think we as Neopagans should focus on how we can use practical items to sacrifice in ritual, rather than trying to focus on something that is uncommon.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

Where does volition and willingness come into sacrifice?

“Pretty much everywhere. Consent is sacred at every step; consent of the person performing or contemplating the sacrifice, consent of the sacrifice itself, consent of the one who raised or produced the sacrifice, consent also of the spirit or deity in question.” — Anomalous Thracian

“Constantly. If a thing is done against one’s will, it cannot be a sacrifice, period. If a person is forced to make an offering, that is no sacrifice, it is compulsion, and no good spirit or deity accepts that as sacrifice. In Haitian Vodou and in all the other traditions I know of where animal sacrifices are performed, no one would ever offer an animal without that animal’s permission; again, to do so without it would be compulsion and would not be a proper sacrifice. Even in halal and kosher ritual, from Islam and Judaism respectively, the animal must be awake and willing to be sacrificed; it cannot be knocked out before the knife is used. This is causing some issues with animal rights activists, most recently in Denmark, for example; but the alternative, to knock an animal unconscious and then kill it, would be completely wrong in that sacrificial tradition — while it may appear to the untrained eye of an animal lover looking at a video to be “kinder” to do this, an unconscious animal is unable to give consent and thus it is both cruel and, from a sacrificial standpoint, unholy/wrong. Those who understand butchery know that there are techniques to kill an animal without pain, and all who perform halal and kosher rituals must be certified as trained.” — Mambo Chita Tann

“Volition means the act of making a decision, and willingness simply means being prepared to do something. As in all rituals, we have to properly prepare ourselves. In many traditions it means putting on special ritual clothing, setting up an altar, smudging ourselves, ritual bathing, and other things to prepare us for the act of ritual. In ritual, we decide who we are going to sacrifice to and why. We always need to enter ritual with a purpose, and we should always have a reason for sacrifice—even if it is just to build a better relationship with our gods. A ritual without a purpose is a waste of everybody’s time.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

Does volition come into play in animal sacrifice, does it matter, and if so, how is it obtained?

“Yes. There are various methods for this, from speaking with the animal directly and observing its behavior (or hearing back, if the asker can communicate with animals directly), and so forth. The ritual structure being employed should provide the structures for ascertaining this. If they do not, they should maybe be reevaluated in order to ensure that they are completely understood and trained.” — Anomalous Thracian

“In terms of how we obtain it: In Haitian Vodou, animals are raised explicitly for the purpose of food and for ritual-related food or ritual purposes where the animal cannot be eaten afterward. These animals are raised by hand, by the community that will sacrifice them. Before they are sacrificed, they are washed, decorated, and prepared by the community. They will be led into the peristyle (the Vodou temple), and presented with a number of various foods. One of these foods is chosen ahead of time as being the official sacrificial food. The animal is told what will happen, and that if it is willing to be sacrificed, that it should eat the official food to signify this. Only if the animal eats the special food will it be presented to the spirits for sacrifice. If it eats anything else first, it must be let free because it is not willing to do the work. It has been my experience that the willing animals not only go immediately to the official food, they will eat all of it, and not even touch the other food (which will be the same: for example, three identical piles of corn for a chicken). They also act like they know what is happening, and they do not fight when they are picked up by the butcher, etcetera. It is a profound experience that is observed with the greatest amount of kindness and dignity. The animal has one life, and is being willing to give it up for us — how could we be less than respectful of that?” — Mambo Chita Tann

“It would have to come into play. A person has to choose to sacrifice an animal, and that is the very definition of volition. In a Neopagan context, I find the notion of animal sacrifice not necessary except for rare exceptions.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

Should animal sacrifice have a place in modern Paganisms, reconstructionisms, and Witchcraft?

“As I am none of these things, I do not feel that it is my place to answer for them. That said I believe that animal sacrifice should have a place in any authentically lived religious tradition which has spirits or gods which request or traditionally receive such things.” — Anomalous Thracian

“Until and unless those practices have a stated need for animal sacrifice – and I believe that most of them never will – I would say no. Should that become necessary, for logistical reasons (i.e., not living in a land with easy access to food animals, refrigeration, etc.), or should the gods require it, then I would believe that those same gods would provide access to the proper context, training, and ability to do so. Vodouisants themselves have this situation. Very, very few individual Vodouisants perform animal sacrifices, and even those who do, do not do it on a daily or regular basis. In the cases where that is a necessary event, there are trained personnel that one can go to, who will perform it on your behalf. I rarely perform that act in the United States; it is simply less necessary here, given our modern conveniences when it comes to food. Even in Haiti, I do not perform it often, and in all cases, I have access to trained personnel who can help me with the sacrifices I am not trained to perform myself. Everything is community-based. Modern Paganisms would have to define the same sorts of communities before they would even know if that was something they were going to need to do. If it ever happens, I believe it would be a long time in the future.” — Mambo Chita Tann

“In general, it could have a very important place, but unless it can be done right it shouldn’t be done at all.” — John Beckett

“In most instances I do not think animal sacrifice really has a place in modern Neopaganism. I do know of a heathen farmer who raises his own pigs and ritually sacrifices one, but this is a rare situation. In a modern context, there simply are alternatives to sacrifice that are every bit as effective.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

What is the nature of sacrifice in terms of transactions between spirits, Gods, and other entities?

“Sometimes sacrifices are a form of payment. Other times they are a form of celebration. Sometimes it is a transaction, sometimes it is praise; always it is reverent.” — Anomalous Thracian

“Depending on the context and the nature of the sacrifice, the sacrifice can reinforce connections by being a thanksgiving for help that has been given; it can be made as a promise for future action; it can be given as a substitute for someone else’s life (as I mentioned above). Sacrifice can represent a total offering of the self to the deities or spirits, or it can be a payment for an expected reciprocal benefit. There is no general meaning that applies to all sacrifices from all people to all spirits or gods – each one, like its nature as a unique and special thing, has a unique and special meaning.” — Mambo Chita Tann

“The nature of sacrifice is that which defines our relationship with the gods (and Kindreds). There are many reasons for sacrifice, and that defines what exactly is being asked or expected in the transaction. Here are few types of sacrifices as our Arch Druid Kirk Thomas has discussed in his various works:

1. Transactional sacrifice is the most common form of sacrifice where the sacred object is offered, and in the nature of hospitality, a gift is given in return. The basis of ADF’s Return Flow portion of ritual is “a gift calls for a gift.” The best one can offer is given, and the blessing and gratitude from the gods is given in return.2. Piacular Sacrifice was a common Roman offering given during ritual to ask for recompense in case the offerings given weren’t enough or good enough. It is based on the fact that humans are inherently flawed, and the offering is given to acknowledge that. This type of sacrifice is still seen in the Roman Catholic Church.3. The appeasement sacrifice is a type of offering given to a being or god to leave you alone. It is literally the “take this and leave” offering. Generally, this type of offering is given to beings not aligned with the ritual being worked, and they are given an offering out of respect to acknowledge they exist, but they are not part of the work being performed.4. The shared meal is a type of sacrifice where a portion of the cooked food is offered to the gods. This is a very common ancient and Neopagan practice.5. Chaos mitigates cosmos is a type of sacrifice that uses a series of offerings to recreate the cosmos in a ritual setting. This type of sacrifice goes back into the pan Indo-European creation story of Man and Twin. Man kills Twin and Twin is dismembered to create the world and cosmos. The chaos is the unknown or Otherworld, and Man takes his place as king of the Otherworld. This type of offering is meant to recreate this, but without any actual bloodshed.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

What about relationship; how does it play into the idea of sacrifice?

“I cannot imagine giving a sacrifice without having a relationship both with the being receiving the sacrifice and the community that would benefit from it; either in the form of food/reversion of the offerings, in the benefits gained from the sacrifice, or both. One might give a random gift to a stranger, for example, but it would be unlikely that one would give a random stranger the most expensive, most wonderful thing one owned. Sacrifice is a special event in the already-existing relationship between beings.” — Mambo Chita Tann

“Sacrifice strengthens relationships: between worshipers and their Gods, and among members of a religious community.” — John Beckett

“Sacrifice is as much about building relationships with the gods as any other reason. It is an act of hospitality. When we open sacred space, we invite the Kindreds into the ritual as family and kin. That relationship is built on sharing and trust. We sacrifice to solidify our relationships and make them stronger. Sacrifice allows the gods to give us their blessings and strengthens their bond with us.” — Rev. Sean W. Harbaugh

Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So let’s get started!

The Pagan Tea Time initiative spearheaded by Patheos Pagan channel editor Christine Kraemer, meant to encourage face-to-face discussions in a Pagan & polytheist blogosphere that has, at times, grown decidedly combative, is now well under way. According to Kraemer, there have already been some remarkable conversations taking place. Quote: “So far, I’ve seen some great reports of Tea Times involving RhydWildermuth, Conor O’Bryan Warren, and a three-way chat between John Halstead, Sannion, and Galina Krasskova (wow!). I haven’t had any tea times with people I haven’t already met yet — one of the blessings of being managing editor here is that getting together with writers via video chat happens semi-routinely, as does attending conferences, so I’ve met many of you already. (Yay!) I did get to do a nice catch-up with Niki Whiting, though, and I have a few more dates set for next month.” The project runs through the month of February, when established Pagan conventions like PantheaCon and ConVocation take place, providing more chances for interaction. Here’s to civility!

Pagan learning institution Cherry Hill Seminary has announced that Lauren Raine will be their artist-in-residence for 2014-2016. CHS President Jeffrey Albaugh, in a public statement, said “it is my pleasure to announce our new Artist in Residence, Lauren Raine. Lauren is a visionary painter, mixed media sculptor, and choreographer, although I know her best from her beautiful and moving theatrical and ritual masks.” Raine, a painter and mixed-media sculpter, is perhaps best known within the Pagan community for her “The Masks of the Goddess” series. Quote: “I’ve always been fascinated with masks as sacred tools – as what Carl Jung called ‘vessels for the archetypal powers’. In 1998 I began a collection of masks of Goddesses from spiritual traditions around the world, first worn at the 20th Annual SPIRAL DANCE in San Francisco.” For the terms of the residency, you can read them at the CHS website.

In Pennsylvania, a local coven documents their struggle to attain the right to perform legally binding wedding ceremonies. Quote: “So i started at my County level and had voice and email exchanges for three days with a very nice, helpful and informative lady there in the right department. There is a notice posted on the Courthouse door, and i tried to paste it in here and then save this draft and WV completely wiped my post off their server. So i will just say it said, to quote, that legal marriages could be performed by Justices of the Peace or Judges or Ministers “of a regularly established church or congregation” which means from those three Religions of the Book. There is a license for Amish, Mennonites and Quakers, but i am not one of them. I am a Witch and we Do have Our Religion!” The Wiccan Priest struggling through this process is Shawnus Merlin Belarion, and he is seeking assistance from outside Pagan organizations in navigating this issue. You can find contact information here.

In Other Pagan Community News:

Sannion has announced that a proposed Polytheist Leadership Conference will indeed take place this Summer. Quote: “The Polytheist Leadership Conference will take place Friday, July 11th through Sunday, July 13th – though we’ve made arrangements so that you can get the block room rate if you want to come in earlier on Thursday.”Please note:“This conference will be open only to people who affirm the autonomy and diversity of the divinities, people who recognize that there are differing types of divine beings (such as Gods, Spirits and Ancestors) and that they all require different forms of cultus, people who are actively engaged in cultus, people who have respect for traditional ways and yet remain open to innovation when it’s called for and people who do not find magic (when properly distinguished from religion), mysticism and direct engagement with the holy powers to be problematic. Racists, sexists and queer- and transphobic need not apply either.” All inquiries should be sent to sannion@gmail.com.

Pagan band Tuatha Dea is crowdfunding a new collection of songs based on the work of author Alex Bledsoe. Quote: “We were INSPIRED and though we had no intention of working on a new CD this soon we simply couldn’t help ourselves! So with Alex’s blessing we began writing music based on his amazing trilogy! One song for each novel, “The Hum and the Shiver”, “Wisp of a Thing” and the anticipated yet to be released “Long Black Curl” (yes we have the skinny but you’ll have to wait and read!) The project..An album called “Tufa Tales- Appalachian Fae”.a musical tribute, backdrop and celebration of these wonderful works and the world within their pages! But that won’t be all…as Tufa’s ourselves we have some other personal bits and pieces to add to the CD!”

The current issue of Sage Woman Magazine (#85) has been mailed to subscribers and is available to order online. Quote: “Celebrate the amazing world of women’s herbalism with this special issue. Stories of healers, visionaries, and pioneers fill us with inspiration. Discover new goddesses, old remedies, and learn how close our own healing powers are in our homes and the natural world all around us.”

Paganicon in Minnesota (held in March) has announced two new featured guests: Taylor Ellwood and Steven Posch. Quote: “We are increasingly excited about this year’s ever-expanding line-up including Oberon Zell, Deborah Lipp, Ivo Dominguez, Jr., and now Taylor Ellwood and Steven Posch. We hope you sign up right away! Remember if you wait too long you’ll have to pay extra, so get the good rate while you can!”

Today, blogs fill a specific niche: real-time, fast-paced information. No print media can keep up with the blogosphere; on the other hoof, even the most super-heated debate in the legendary Green Egg forum (letters to the editor) never got as crazily divisive as what happens in the comment-rich, disinhibited atmosphere of the Web.

Pagans are an information-hungry group of people; reading led many, if not most, of us onto our paths. (Most of our magazine readers are solitaries, which I suspect is true of Pagan culture as a whole.) The purpose of a magazine is to gather together a group of collated, vetted, and edited articles in a way that makes sense as a set and which forms a non-evolving collection of knowledge; blogs, on the other hoof, are radically individualized by their nature and are constantly evolving. I see these two modalities as fundamentally complementary—what one does well, the other does poorly. I hope we can see the continuance of literary paper-based culture even as the digital culture continues to grow, which is why I publish magazines (both in digital and paper formats) as well as hosting a rapidly-growing Pagan blogosphere.

XKCD comic by Randall Munroe

When I started The Wild Hunt nearly 10 years ago, there wasn’t really a “blogosphere” to speak of. Most Pagan content on the Internet existed in the form of bulletin boards, static (sporadically updated) sites, and e-lists. There were literally only a handful of Pagan blogs when I started this site, and many folks used the new technology at places like LiveJournal for personal journaling, not a soapbox per-se. I was a fairly early adopter of blogging technology when it emerged, and was fascinated by the possibilities of the medium. Like many others, I quickly recognized that the “blog” had capabilities far beyond listing updates to a large website, or writing short personal entires. While some feared the disruptive nature of blogging technology, I realized that it could be used to prove a point. I could use it to prove that people wanted to read about Pagan news every day, and that there was enough news to write about something every day.

Ten years later, The Wild Hunt has more than enough to write about. More, in fact, than our small team can conceivably do justice to. We’ve grown from a one-person personal project into a media outlet that employes several columnists, and one staff writer. We have a yearly budget, one that we raise from donations, and our traffic continues to grow at a steady rate each year. So I see Niven’s generalizations as not only limiting, but subtly insulting. A blog, at its heart, is simply a technology, like the printing press. When you say you read “a blog” that today says almost nothing about what you’ll get (it’s like someone saying they read “books” and nothing more). The biggest media empires use blogging technology on their sites, and the content can range from celebrity gossip to ultra-professional, edited, and vetted, content. Meanwhile, picking up a magazine gives you zero guarantee that you’ll receive “collated, vetted, and edited articles in a way that makes sense as a set and which forms a non-evolving collection of knowledge.”

A medium is a medium, not the content within it. Mediums can be stretched, changed, challenged, and redefined over the course of different generations. A “real” magazine can be experimental and radical, produced on a shoestring budget, or it can be a well-funded venture that engages in the current norms of editorial and news gathering. Anyone who grew up during the ‘zine revolution of the 1990s knows well enough that mediums aren’t limited by the dominant culture’s standards. Likewise, while many tried to pigeonhole blogs in the early years as the tool of the lone opinionated crank (usually writing about politics), the reality is that many different people used the technology for many different things. Is Talking Points Memo a mere “blog,” or is it a news and political commentary site? If we call it a blog, does that mean it isn’t collated, vetted, and subject to editorial oversight? Is The Wild Hunt still a blog? Are we a part of a blogosphere? We use blogging technology, certainly, but I also think we’ve grown outside the expectations that seem to inform the Patheos interview.

Finally, let me talk briefly about the Pagan magazine. Another reason I started The Wild Hunt was because I was hungry for news about my community, and couldn’t find any in Pagan magazines. They had interviews, and columns, and short stories, and poetry, and recipes, and a letters column, but they rarely tackled actual events happening in and around our lives. When they did, it was often long after the dust had settled. It created the sense that modern Paganism should be handled by the professional Pagans, the “Big Name Pagans,” and that the rest of us should simply give our support. It didn’t have to be that way, even a quarterly magazine can write about big issues, can at least inform their readership of all the things that happened in the last few months, but a reliance on “evergreen” content, and a hesitance to embrace these new technologies left the door wide open for The Wild Hunt’s success. When people ask me why my blog got so big, I tell them the truth: no one else wanted to do what I was doing. At least not on the daily schedule I maintained.

Blogging may have been disruptive, but it also empowered all sorts of people to speak up, to insert themselves into the process of how our community is defined and presented. It rejected the old “club” mentality that had held sway from the 1980s, and demanded a more responsive, more inclusive, community. If things are so “divisive” now, perhaps that is simply because there’s 20 years of frustration built up from having no voice at all in national and international Pagan affairs. Now, we can’t be shut up, because our news isn’t centralized into a handful of vetted and edited publications. If someone doesn’t like something in The Wild Hunt(or any media outlet), they can (and do) publish about it. They can rally their own corner of our community, they can create alternatives, they can have the public discussions they want to have. I sometimes bemoan how uncivil things can get sometimes, but I would never, ever, roll us back to some simpler time before this technology existed. We are collectively better for it.

Digital Pagan media is the dominant format today, and I don’t think anyone could convincingly argue otherwise. The separations between a published print magazine, and, say, The Wild Hunt, is only in the format. I would certainly place may content on the same plain of quality as anything in print, perhaps even better (though I may be biased). It is no longer acceptable to generalize about the “blog” without providing a list of caveats that make the comparisons almost meaningless. The larger Pagan blogosphere is many things, and has many manifestations, but it is no longer some ascendent disruptive format, it has become a ubiquitous tool used by every manifestation of the content we consume. From commerce to hard news. We are the media now.

Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So let’s get started!

Adocentyn Research Library, a Pagan library located in the San Francisco Bay area, has reached a new milestone. According to Adocentyn board member and co-founder Donald H. Frew, the institution has now catalogued over 5000 books. Quote: “At the end of last weekend’s cataloguing day, we broke the 5000 mark and reached 5150 books in our online catalogue! You can see them, here. The most recent additions are shown at the top. (Make sure the drop down tab at the upper left shows “All collections”.) There are over 6000 volumes currently on-site (plus hundreds of periodicals) with another 5000+ coming (plus ephemera such as correspondence, notebooks, etc.). Cataloguing takes time, but we have 19 volunteers helping us move things along.” You can keep up with the latest announcements at their official Facebook page. Adocentyn has had preliminary talks with the New Alexandrian Library Project (currently under construction) and other institutions in forming a Pagan Libraries Organization so that they can share information, and offer inter-library loans.

Plans for the New Alexandrian Library

Speaking of the New Alexandrian Library, work and fundraising on the project is ongoing. A project of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel, the library hopes to become “one of the cornerstones of a new magickal renaissance.” If that is something you’d like to be a part of, September might be an excellent month to donate. The Louis Claude de St. Martin Fund of the Luzerne Foundation has offered a $500 matching challenge grant to the library. Assembly of the Sacred Wheel member Leanne Pemburn asks supporters to “consider a $10 donation, that will become $20, or a $50 donation that will become $100″ and that “now’s the time to magickally grow your donation!” You can find donation information, here. In other New Alexandrian Library news, if you go to their official Facebook page, you can see some of the books in their collection awaiting opening day. As their websites says, “you can play an important part in bringing this dream into reality. The immediate need is for the funds to build the library, although donations of books and other materials will be welcome. The New Alexandrian Library will be located in the sacred woods of Seelie Court in Southern Delaware and will be under the aegis of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel, a 501(c)3 organization. All donations to the NAL are tax deductable.” You can see all previous reporting on this project, here.

Lilith Dorsey

The Patheos Pagan channel has launched a new blog entitled “Voodoo Universe” featuring the writings of Lilith Dorsey, author of “Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism,” and an initiate in Santeria, Vodoun, and New Orleans Voodoo. In her first blog post, Dorsey lays out her spiritual journey. Quote: “My personal spiritual journey includes numerous initiations in Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo, and Santeria. In 1995 I became editor and publisher of the Oshunnewsletter, providing accurate and respectful information about Afro-Diasporan Pagan religions. I hold an undergraduate degree in anthropology and my graduate degree comes from a inter-disciplinary program in cinema/television studies and anthropology. Training is vital in any discipline, but takes on special significance in a spiritual context. Voodoo, Vodou, Santeria, Candomble, Ifa, Obeah, Hoodoo, and for that matter any other African based religion survives on it’s lineage, history, and training of it’s devotees.” As Afro-diasporic and African Traditional Religions become more popular, and more Pagans become initiates into these traditions, good information and news from these communities will be increasingly vital. I look forward to reading Voodoo Universe.

If you live near the San Francisco Bay area, Solar Cross Temple’s annual Idunna Blót and Apple Harvest Celebration is this Sunday. Quote: “Please join Solar Cross for this annual event! Gather at 11:00 am at the Palace to help wash and press this season’s apple harvest. The Idunna blót begins promptly at 12:00 noon and will be led by members of the local Heathen community. We will toast Idunna and ask Her blessing, and then continue the celebration with storytelling, song, and feasting.” I was able to go last year, and it was a fun time! Contact the organizers for directions and details.

Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So let’s get started!

Chas Clifton reports that Dr. Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge, and author of “Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America” is launching a new research project on individual’s spiritual relationship with animals. Quote: “The purpose of this study is to understand how we imagine our relationship to animals, how we incorporate animals into our spiritual or religious beliefs, and how this may motivate our actions in the everyday world.” You can take the survey, here. At the survey page Magliocco elaborates on benefits of the study: “This research could shed light on how people come to imagine themselves as part of an interconnected community that includes domestic and wild animals, and develop feelings that lead them to want to protect, defend and care for both domestic and wild animals. It may also reveal areas in which individuals diverge from the theological teachings of their religion as a result of their personal experiences with animals. Findings could be useful in developing educational programs for children and young people that foster sustainability.” Again, the survey link.

The Pagan History Project (PHP) initiated with a soft launch this week on Facebook, with a full website to follow soon. An oral history project created to “collect, store, share and preserve the history of the American Pagan Movement,” co-founder Murtagh AnDoile said the scope of the project would be broad. Quote: “We are using “Pagan” in its broadest sense, encompassing: Witchcraft , Traditional and other, Wicca, Heathenry, Druidry, various Reconstructionisms, Magical Lodges, etc. All the groups and traditions and paths that make up the American Occult/Magical/Pagan movement from the early days ( the 1930s, 40’s 50’s…) to present. We are focusing on everything and everyone pre-1995 at this time, due to our aging population.” Initial interviews have already been conducted, and an informational packet instructing those interested on how to participate in their local communities and festivals will be released soon. Wild Hunt staffer Rynn Fox has been following the development of this project, and will be filing a report soon.

PNC-Minnesota has posted the first part of a lengthy interview with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, authors of “Progressive Witchcraft,” and longtime elders within the Pagan community. Quote: “We used the term Progressive Witchcraft at one point to describe the evolutionary process at work. But we found people started saying, “Oh, Progressive Witchcraft, that’s a tradition. ” No, it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s a description of your philosophy and how you work in Witchcraft. So now what we teach with everybody who comes to us is, we teach them… We feel training is very important. The training is important because the training helps to teach our students how to make the connection.”

Raven Radio, a Heathen talk-radio program, has an interesting show up that looks inside the world of Asatru within prison, and the hurdles involved in following that faith while incarcerated. Quote: “This week we have a lengthy conversation with “Jimmy Dean”, a man who found heathenry while doing time. He enlightens us a great deal about what it means to be incarcerated, how one can practice heathenry, avoiding certain undesirable groups like the neo-nazis, etc.”

Temple of Witchcraft at Boston Pride.

I love seeing pictures of Pagan organizations marching in LGBTQ Pride parades, so be sure to check out the Temple of Witchcraft’s Facebook page, where they’ve posted several photos of their involvement with the Boston Pride Parade. Quote from ToW co-founder Steve Kenson: “Thank you to all who came out to march and represent for the pagans in Saturday’s Boston GLBT Pride parade and to those who cheered us on! The gods rewarded us with a clear and warm day after a grey and wet morning. Many thanks and blessings!”

Also at Patheos, the Pagan Families blog interviews Tara “Masery” Miller about the process of “adopting while Pagan.” Quote: “The Missouri Family and Children’s Services, a government agency, intention to adopt form illegally asked what our religion was. Just as I suspected. I was aware it was illegal because my atheist friend had sent me plenty of references on religion and adoption. Well, instead of blatantly saying I’m Pagan and my husband’s a mage, I said we are spiritual and I belong to the Unitarian Universalist Church! And sometimes we attend a Methodist Church. Which is true. My mother is a lay minister!” That quote is from part two of the interview, here.

The Summer Solstice is coming up, and Llewellyn is holding a Twitter party to celebrate! Quote: “The beginning of June marks shorts days, grill days, and summer hours for our luckly Llewellyn employees–but it’s not very fair that you don’t get to participate, is it? So we want you to join us in a summer celebration! We are hosting our second annual Solstice Twitter party! […] Use the hashtag #moonchat in your party tweets. We’ll tweet the questions, you’ll tweet the answers, and we’ll chat!” There are going to be prize giveaways for participants, so if you’re stuck in an office that day, why not?

In a final note for all our Trad-Wiccan friends out there (and you know who you are), June 13th is Geraldmas! The celebration of Gerald Gardner, the father of modern religious Witchcraft (born June 13th, 1884). I think it’s a great idea to have a day where BTW groups do a day of outreach and socializing. Are you having a Geraldmas celebration in your area this year?

We live in a Pagan bubble.

Mostly, we seem unaware that the bubble exists.

We talk a lot to ourselves, Pagans do. We talk to ourselves about who we are and who we are not. We talk to ourselves about what we believe, what we do not believe, and sometimes we even argue about whether or not belief is that meaningful.

We argue, Pagans do, within the Pagan bubble.

We also, at times, dive deep into meaningful conversations that look nothing like argument. Some of us sit in contemplation with the difficult stuff of community building, and we do so with grace and compassion. We are complicated, for certain.

But the Pagan bubble is real. And so long as we continue to live inside of it, we remain ghettoized.

At least, we are ghettoized online. The Pagan and polytheist corners of the internet foster conversations that require so much context as to be nearly unintelligible to outsiders. I suppose to a degree this is the nature of any walled-off community. It’s what religious people do: they talk within their walls about who they are.

But this talking to ourselves about ourselves is debilitating. We become steeped in our own lore, influenced by our own memetic waves, and stuck within a vocabulary and symbol system that could really benefit from a Universal Translator. We are well versed at talking about who we are to each other, but I’m beginning to think that we are (or, at least, I am) unpracticed at talking about who we are to people who do not share our vernacular.

This all came into focus for me as I was sitting at my parents dining room table this past weekend. My stepfather, a man who has loved me as his own for nearly thirty years, a man who has never been religious but who has been tolerant of my religiosity in its various incarnations, looked at me and said, gently,

“I read your blog, but I don’t really have any idea what you’re talking about.”

*pause*

I was speechless.

I didn’t know I’d been that cryptic. I didn’t realize that my writing was so narrowly focused. I’d thought that within the realm of Pagan writers I’d managed to do a pretty good job thinking and writing outside of the box. I’ve worked to consider the diversity of belief and religious practice in the Pagan world, and I often reach for something more universal — more purely human — that might unite us in a shared understanding.

But that’s just it. I’ve been doing this work fromwithin the realm of Paganism. I have been writing in a Pagan bubble.

Even this blog post I’m writing now is written on a site create by a Pagan for Pagans. It offers a “modern Pagan perspective,” primarily for the benefit of other Pagans.

The bubble is big, and there’s a lot of great work going on within the bubble. But it is still a bubble.

Reeling from this realization, I ran through the list of places that house my writing:

My work at Bishop In The Grove is geared toward an audience of mostly Pagans and polytheists. There is the occasional Buddhist reader/commenter, and once in a while a Progressive Christian shows up with a kind word. But mostly, it’s a Pagan blog.

The Solitary Druid Fellowship blog is even more specific to a Pagan tradition (ADF Druidry). It’s more universal in its language and approach than many ADF groves, being that it seeks to serve solitaries of a wide variety of hearth cultures and traditions. But, you’ve still got to get a basic education in Paganism or Druidry to benefit from all of what the Fellowship offers.

I write for HuffPost Religion primarily on the High Days; and while I try to include a little descriptive information in each post about the relevance of the day for the benefit of non-Pagans, the posts are mostly directed toward people for whom these days already have relevance. I write posts that serve as reflections on days that are sacred to Pagans.

When I wrote at Patheos, an interfaith blogging site, it would have appeared that I was working outside of the Pagan bubble. But I was writing on the “Pagan channel.” Even within this mini-verse of religious blogs, there are clearly drawn religious lines. The Pagan bubble exists there, too.

I have a column coming out in the next edition of Witches and Pagans, and… well… can you get much more Pagan than that?

In a few seconds I realized that the majority, if not all of the writing I’ve done in the past few years — a couple hundred posts worth — has been Pagan-specific, Pagan-centered, and Pagan-directed.

I’m not unfamiliar with operating within a cultural ghetto. Growing up gay, I immersed myself in an ad-hoc study of gay history, gay culture, and gay tradition. I sought out resources on gay spirituality, visited gay bookstores, and sewed a gay patch on my backpack. I bought gay political rags, gauged my support of politicians based on their stances on gay issues, and checked the language of newspaper and online articles with precision to search out “gay friendly” or “anti-gay” language.

Everything was, for a time, filtered through a gay lens. And by creating a gay bubble for myself (or, rather, by gleefully recognizing my place within the gay bubble created by my gay forebears), I was able to affirm my gay identity, my gay tastes and preferences, and my sense of gay-self. I knew where I stood within the gay bubble, and I knew very clearly what stood on the outside.

The gay community first organized in response to cultural oppression and subjugation. Gays organized because they were being treated poorly, and through organization we were able to forge change within culture. We continue to do so to this day. But should we achieve all of our political goals and forge the cultural change we have sought out for so long, we may find ourselves in a position where we are no longer in need of protection against the over-culture. The cultural forces whose othering allowed for us to shore up our sense of individual and collective identities may become benign.

I suspect a similar fate for Pagans should we step outside of our bubble, and I think this may be one reason why the bubble stays in place.

“In today’s world, many ghettos, which were created by people who othered us, are maintained because we cherish our otherness.”

We perpetuate our otherness because it’s safer than being out. We perpetuate our otherness, I think, because if we allow the walls to come down from around our encampment, our stronghold against those on the outside, we run the risk of losing our sense of identity in the world.

Do these boundaries continue to be necessary? Do they serve a purpose, other than for protection?

How, I wonder, might we be better served by the deconstruction of our ghettos? What would happen if we no longer lived in this Pagan bubble?

Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So let’s get started!

In Memoriam: Kyril Oakwind (1951-2013): Word has come to us that Gardnerian and Church of All Worlds Priestess Kyril Oakwind passed away on March 9, 2013 after a long struggle with metastatic breast cancer. Oakwind served as a board member for Sweetwood Temenos, was founder of the Madison, Wisconsin area Pagan Tea & Talk, and publisher of Converging Paths Magazine. In a post today at her Facebook page, Selena Fox at Circle Sanctuary sent blessings for Kyril Oakwind’s many contributions to the Pagan community.

Kyril Oakwind

“Remembering Wiccan priestess, Pagan elder, neighbor, & friend Kyril, who died yesterday after a long battle with breast cancer. Thankful for Kyril’s many contributions to Paganism, near & far, over the years. Blessings to her in the realm of the Ancestors. Condolences & support to her family, friends, & all of us mourning her passing. Blessed Be.”

In an email to me Selena Fox went on to add that “she not only did teaching, rituals, and networking in the great Madison, Wisconsin area, but did writing and editing of Pagan publications that connected Pagans further away.” May we remember her, and all those who did the work of building connections in our community. Our condolences go out to her friends and family. What is remembered, lives.

“I am overjoyed to tell all of you that my peer review journal, Coreopsis, is coming back into publication. The submission period is open for 2013 – We go “live” on February 14 on our new site now published by Concrescent Scholars, the academic wing of Concrescent Press in Richmond, CA. Submission are open to young scholars and working artists as well as established scholars.”

While the submission period for the Spring/Summer issue has now passed, the Fall/Winter issues submission deadline is August 15 with a theme of “Penny tae th’ Guisers: An examination of medieval performance before 1400.” Submission guidelines can be found, here.

“For several years we’ve been working towards a goal that you, our fans, set for us- make another album! With an eye towards stepping it up a notch, we will be entering a professional recording studio. We are hoping to cover studio and mixing/mastering time as well as post production pressing, packaging, and pachyderms (just kidding about that last bit – wanted to see if your paying attention), Spiral Rhythm is throwing ourselves upon the mercy of you, the fans, by initiating this Kickstarter project. Our hope is to make one shiny new CD, but if we raise the roof with this thing, we have enough material for two. Two! Want to help? Of course you do.”

If you’re a fan of Spiral Rhythm’s work, now’s the time to support them in their efforts. A $20 donation gets you a digital download, and a $35 donation gets you a copy of the physical CD (once recorded). The band adds that “we all do this for love, not profit, and we have to take into account jobs, children, family, all of which can interfere with the concrete reality of making a new CD.” They vow the new music will get recorded, but I’m sure it would help if they made their fundraising goal.

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

PNC-Minnesota has a piece up about the much-talked-about PantheaCon 2013 panel on privilege held in the COG/NWC/NROOGD suite, and moderated by T. Thorn Coyle. Quote: “The panel opened with Coyle talking about what is meant by privilege. ”If you have clean drinking water coming out of your faucet, that is privilege.” She emphasized the discussion about privilege would not be about placing blame, guilt, or victimization but about gaining a deeper understanding of one another and exploring differences and common ground. Privilege is often defined as the advantages a person or group has that are so normal to them they are usually unaware of them.” I had tried to attend this panel, but it was completely full by the time I arrived. I hear an audio recording was made, and hopefully this will be made available soon. I also hope this discussion can be continued more formally at PantheaCon next year.

NPR explores religious exemptions, who gets them, and why. Quote: “Religious exemptions are nearly as old as the nation. Early debate centered on oath-taking and bearing arms in militias. Today, they’re over where to educate children, whether to vaccinate them, who your church can hire or whether your synagogue pays taxes on its land, even what you can wear in a photo ID or if you can skip the photograph altogether.”

Why should same-sex marriage be legal? Because not every religion agrees with Christian thought on the issue. Quote: “Now anyone can come along to the centre to have their wedding. Perhaps people might assume that the centre is just for Hindus and we want people to know it is open to everyone, regardless of race, religion or sexuality. This is one way of us integrating with the community.”

The Patheos Pagan Portal has posted audio from their Pagan Intrafaith panel at PantheaCon 2013. Quote: “I’m in favor of a “big tent” definition of Paganism that is inclusive and welcoming – but if Paganism is going to survive as a diverse movement, we need to improve communication between different traditions and paths. I know that meeting Pagans with radically different beliefs and practices has helped me a great deal in developing my own, and I want my community to continue to be a place where that kind of inter-tradition communication can happen.”

Meeting a Vodou priest in Haiti. Quote: “Vodou is still alive in Haiti — whether we can see it or not. It is a religion with deep roots from West Africa. The great influence of his ancestors is still strong with Lisma. I was only there to observe and learn more about him. An encounter with someone like Lisma and immersing myself in other cultures is why I continue to travel to unknown places. Although, I will never fully understand the complexities of vodou, I now have a better understanding of the people and history of Haiti.”

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

I am sitting in a boardroom on the second floor of the Doubletree Hotel. It’s the first day of Pantheacon; I have actually only been off the plane to San Jose for a little over two hours. At the head of the table are six people whom I only know from photographs: others who, like me, write for the Patheos Pagan Portal. We are there for a panel discussion on Pagan Intrafaith work: that is, to discuss the possibility of using the techniques other religious groups use for interfaith connections in relation to the various religions that fall under the umbrella of Paganism.

The panel lasts for about an hour and a half. In that time, I reach three conclusions:

I should have prepared more for this discussion. (If you listen to the audio, I basically stopped talking halfway through, mainly because I wanted to marvel at how brilliant everyone else sounded.)

I genuinely liked everyone else who was in the room. Not just that I enjoyed their blogs, or respected them as thinkers – though yes, that too – but I liked them, as people. I looked forward to running into them over and over again throughout the weekend.

These folks were almost nothing like me. And that, oddly enough, made me all the more fond of them.

In my pre-Pantheacon column, I mentioned that being a second-generation Pagan comes with certain non-obvious consequences. The one I focused on there was my lack of interaction with the “greater Pagan community” until only a few years ago – until I began writing about my experiences, really.

Another one of those non-obvious consequences is this: I’ve never gone through a phase where I cast about for a methodology that called to me. I’ve never gone to public rituals, hoping to chance on a group that did things in a way that appealed to me, or combed through dozens of books in search of a tradition. I simply learned how to do things the way my family did them. And, as a result, I suppose I never worried much about the differences that might exist between our ways and everyone else’s.

I attended 11 rituals during the four days of Pantheacon – a number that feels a bit unreal, by the way. That’s close to the number of rituals I participated in during the entire preceding year. None of those rituals were much like what I do when I’m at home, either in content or in structure. I could see the relationship between my Wicca and the CAYA Coven’s Rite of 1,000 Crowns: in both, we cast a circle, we called the elements, we stated a purpose, and we went about achieving that purpose through song and motion. But still, they were very different. The organization of CAYA’s ritual was completely different from anything I’d seen before: multiple priests and priestesses, no communion (at least not of food and drink), no Great Rite. (I only saw one Great Rite all weekend, during a Body Acceptance Ritual on the last day of the convention. Even that was modified into a “full spectrum” Great Rite that included non-heteronormative pairings: scepter to scepter, cup to cup, and scepter to cup as well.)

Those were the only two Wiccan-ish rituals I went to – everything else was much farther afield from my “ritual comfort zone.” I spent one night in a ceremony led by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, which he called the Antinoan Dream Incubation Ritual. It involved calling upon a deity with whom I had never interacted and asking him to visit my dreams; the structure had no similarity to any ritual I’d done before, with long stretches of untranslated Greek and readings of the deified Antinou’s obelisk that included the lacunae caused by vandals or weather. It was a fascinating ritual, mind-expanding. It was nothing like what I would do at home, and nothing that I was likely to repeat as part of my own personal practice.

Indeed, that was what I found valuable about it.

I’m hardly an expert on inter/intrafaith work – again, I ran out of things to say during our panel on the subject! – but if I can take anything away from Pantheacon, it’s this: there is tremendous value in simply seeing what other people are doing, even if, especially if, their practice differs greatly from our own. It’s so easy to slip into these ironclad descriptions of ourselves: “I’m a traditional initiated witch,” “I’m a Celtic reconstructionist,” “I’m a Radical Faerie.” Or, for that matter, “I’m a second-generation Wiccan.” Those labels can all too quickly slip from being descriptions to being shackles, ways of isolating ourselves from experiences outside of the area we have claimed for ourselves.

I’ll be honest: wandering around that hotel, I often felt like a hayseed taking his first steps into the big city. Things out in San Jose were bigger and weirder than I had prepared for. But within only a few hours, I had adjusted myself to the possibilities. I talked to people who I would usually never talk to, worshiped in ways I would have never thought to worship. Will any of that change the way I do things now that I’m back at home? Hard to say; probably not in any way that would leave my practice visibly changed from what it is already.

But in seeing what Paganism means to others, the vast area that term covers, I have come to appreciate the umbrella of our faith all the more. At Pantheacon, I discovered that I had indeed lived a different sort of life than most people in the Pagan community; but then again, so had everyone else.

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

Deseret News reports on Indra Neelameggham, the first Hindu (and first woman) to ever give an opening invocation at a Utah governor’s inauguration. Quote: “It is a prayer for peace, happiness, harmony and contentment, Sen. (Orrin) Hatch and (former) Gov. (Jon M.) Huntsman both told me after the ceremony that they thought my prayer was inspiring, so I guess it went pretty well […] So many people believe that in Utah we are just a Mormon community,” she said. “Certainly that is the predominant religion, but we are so much more than just that. And I think they wanted someone to represent that diversity.” Neelameggham is a member of the Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple of Utah, and a pivotal figure in Utah’s Hindu community.

The U.S. Forest Service has found a relationship between the loss of trees and a downturn in human health and life expectancy. Quote: “The “relationship between trees and human health,” as they put it, is convincingly strong. They controlled for as many other demographic factors as possible. And yet, they are unable to satisfactorily explain why this might be so […] there is something fascinatingly mysterious about the entanglement of our health with that of nature. The suspicion that this may be so, of course, is seen well outside of the scientific literature on the topic […] Henry David Thoreau, writing in The Atlantic in June 1862, said, ‘I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.'”

John Beckett, a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) and Vice President of CUUPS National, has joined the Patheos Pagan Portal as a blogger. Quote: “This blog is part of my spiritual journey. Sometimes I write about what’s going on in my life. Sometimes I write about what’s in the news or what’s abuzz on the Pagan internet. There are some recurring themes: the nature of the Universe, the origins of religion, developing relationships with the spirits of nature, with our ancestors, and with our gods and goddesses. Spiritual growth. Magic. Building vibrant religious communities. And perhaps most importantly, how to combine all that into a spiritual practice that builds a better world here and now.” Congratulations to John, Patheos is lucky to have you.

Radio Netherlands profiles 18-year-old Adrien Adandé of Benin, a High School student by day, and a Vodun priest by night. Quote: “As soon as he gets home from school, 18-year-old Adrien Adandé slips out of his high school uniform and into his voodoo priest robes. A large crowd is already queuing outside for consultations. Adandé took over the practice from his father, who initiated him into the Voodoo rites before his death. ‘As a child, I was my father’s only son who was interested in what he was doing at the convent,’ the teenager recalls. ‘Along the way, he taught me things and showed me the secrets.'” It’s an interesting piece, featuring several perspectives on Vodun in Benin.

The Telegraph in India check in with Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, India’s most famous Wiccan. Quote: “Draped in a black cloak, Chakraverti put 70-odd students of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, under a spell on January 9 as she spoke about ghosts and planchettes and decoded Wiccan symbols. “Black is a witch’s favourite colour. It stands for enigma and dignity in Wicca. The broom signifies a woman being liberated from household activities and flying away in search of identity. The conical hat is a symbol of concentration and free-flowing thought,” she explained.”

Think Africa Press notes that blaming traditional African belief systems for witchcraft-related crimes and persecutions ignores that most of these harmful and violent manifestations are modern inventions, and that Pentecostal and evangelical churches have had a large influence in their development. Quote: “Today’s witchcraft beliefs and practices are as much products of modern dynamics as they are informed by long-standing tradition. Witchcraft beliefs are not remnants of ‘pre-modern’ cultures but contemporary phenomena embedded in, and partly constituted by, specific and current cultural and socio-economic contexts.”

The remains of a controversial Santa Muerte statue located at the San Benito Municipal Cemetery. (Photo: San Benito News)

The vacation spot of Eastbourne, England, now has a Witch’s home that you can rent for holidays, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. Quote: “Lucya is a practising Wiccan, and has opened up her seaside home to wannabe witches through holiday rental site wimdu.co.uk so she can show them the rudiments of spell-casting, read their tarot cards and share some of her magical abilities.”

Over at Llewellyn, Donald Michael Kraig shares the news that Circle Magazine is back in publication after going on hiatus in 2010. Quote: “I am now pleased to inform you that, after a hiatus, CIRCLE Magazine is resuming publication. Issue 112 – Urban Magic is at the printer and will be mailing out to you in February. We are now seeking contributions of writing, artwork and poetry for Issues 113 – Shamanism, 114 – Home & Harvest and 115 – Lineage & Family Tradition. The deadline for submissions for Issue 113 is Friday, March 8th! More deadlines and information on how to submit contributions can be found at http://www.circlesanctuary.org/circle.” Congratulations, and welcome back!

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.